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BMC Helix Cloud Security vs Tenable Security Center comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Qualys TotalCloud
Sponsored
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (11th), Container Security (12th), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (8th), SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (7th)
BMC Helix Cloud Security
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
36th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (26th)
Tenable Security Center
Ranking in Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
23rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (15th), Risk-Based Vulnerability Management (9th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) category, the mindshare of Qualys TotalCloud is 1.9%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of BMC Helix Cloud Security is 0.9%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tenable Security Center is 1.6%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Qualys TotalCloud1.9%
Tenable Security Center1.6%
BMC Helix Cloud Security0.9%
Other95.6%
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
 

Featured Reviews

RO
IT Security Expert at Alior Bank S.A.
Unified risk scoring has improved our cloud visibility and simplifies remediation priorities
Qualys TotalCloud provides unified vulnerability and threat assessment across both IAS and SaaS. This solution provides a single prioritized view of risk, which helps reduce the work I would have to do. We are no longer based on CVSS; we are based on Qualys risk scoring, which is based on CVSS plus internal findings made by Qualys, and then assigns its own score. The TruRisk insight feature has found a small number of assets with high vulnerability scores, though I am cautious since some information is classified. Qualys TotalCloud has positively impacted our bank's performance, and we have definitely seen benefits after implementing this solution.
DG
Portfolio Manager/ Helix Administrator at Frontier Communications
A highly scalable and straightforward solution with a knowledgeable support team
We work on a third-party shared environment. It wouldn’t have been feasible for a smaller company. My company was actually the first one to do it. Just like any cloud security, it pays to do your research and have complimentary security involved. The product can’t be the be-all and end-all tool for your security. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
reviewer1534134 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Information Security at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized analytics have strengthened patch visibility and support efficient regulatory reporting
From my experience, I assess the product's analytics capabilities as successful. It helped us significantly with patching and managing the risk of the patching process across all our environments, including network devices with Windows and Unix systems. The product covered several environments and gave us exactly what we needed in our environment. Tenable Security Center's centralized platform helped with risk assessment and management across our IT environments. It covered the patching process, and we previously faced many issues regarding how to patch different environments, how to monitor the patching process, and whether it was successful or not. We obtained good reports showing when patches were closed and the details of each patch, including who executed it and everything related to the patching process until it was closed. This gave us good details about the process which helped us significantly in our reporting and even in audits, whether internal or external. We learned how to close audit issues safely and successfully. We used the dashboards for real-time threat insights and extracted several dashboards from Tenable Security Center. We use these dashboards in our cybersecurity dashboard and committees that we have. These dashboards are part of our committees, especially the cybersecurity committee and other committees that we attend.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Once you have your vulnerabilities fixed and your patches pushed out using Qualys TotalCloud, then you are able to eliminate threats and cyber risk."
"It is a cloud-native app that integrates with both IaaS and SaaS. It seamlessly integrates with other platforms."
"Qualys TotalCloud is an excellent platform, and the beauty of the platform is that we can get all the vulnerabilities, see all the reports in a single dashboard, view them segregated, and easily learn about critical, high, and medium findings with appropriately provided remediation steps."
"TotalCloud offers a comprehensive suite of features, including EDR, XDR, and TrueRisk, providing a centralized platform for managing vulnerabilities and security risks."
"I like the web API security and IoT scanning features the most. The user-friendly design of TotalCloud's interface enables customers to navigate it and use its full potential easily"
"I would definitely recommend Qualys TotalCloud to other users."
"Qualys TotalCloud provides a single, prioritized view based on requirements such as identifying the most vulnerable assets and calculating the average time to remediate vulnerabilities."
"If I had to say something positive about the product that brings me the biggest benefit, I would say it has accurate reports, gets new update CVEs, zero-day attack detection, and is easy to manage with its GUI."
"With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud."
"The cool feature of Helix Cloud Security is that you can do all that — understand and remediate issues — in one dashboard, based on the different policies that are available for security, out-of-the-box."
"Using this solution is an eye-opener; having that holistic view is the biggest eye-opener because you understand, from any of your connected cloud accounts, what your vulnerabilities are with it."
"Role-based security is a valuable feature."
"It is a good tool to make sure that your containers are safe and sound."
"It's also multi-cloud. You can look at several cloud providers: AWS, Azure, or GCP."
"The features that I've found most valuable are its container security aspect. I also like its vulnerability management tools."
"The best feature is time to value. With very minimal effort, you are able to have a cohesive view into your security posture on one or multiple cloud accounts, particularly if you are dealing with multicloud. If you have Azure and AWS deployments, you might have multiple subscriptions in Azure and usually multiple accounts in AWS. You may even be doing some GCP work (around Google Cloud Platform). It's very difficult to manage a common set of policies, even less reporting, across multiple subscriptions, accounts, and cloud environments. What BMC Helix Cloud Security does is provide a unified view or single pane of glass as to your baseline. Then, it also facilitates the ability for Level 1 or 2 operations support to take action and report on security vulnerabilities."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the dashboards and speed of the test, and Tenable.sc is user-friendly."
"My advice for those considering Tenable Security Center is to note the benefit of upgrading vulnerable devices."
"We really love the Security Center dashboard; the dashboard helps us out to map what things need to be prioritized, what is our current threat landscape and what would be the latest threats that we have in our network."
"Compliance and vulnerability scans are most valuable; compliance scan helps in validating how our teams are complying, and vulnerability scan helps in future-proofing, and its vulnerability detection is accurate."
"I prefer Tenable SC because it provides more information."
"The tool's dashboard and reporting capabilities match our company's needs since we are able to modify the basic view to create a new dashboard, and it works out very well for our needs."
"I find Tenable SC to be a very scalable product."
"The most effective feature of Tenable Security Center for detecting vulnerabilities is its capability for critical mapping."
 

Cons

"The downside is only in container security, but it has not been a long time since they introduced these models."
"Qualys TotalCloud's increasing complexity, due to the development and deployment of multiple solutions, is making the GUI difficult to navigate."
"TotalCloud could improve the classification of vulnerabilities. Specifically, it could enhance the categorization of what aspects fall under patches resolved by OS or software updates and what pertains to configuration adjustments."
"In TotalCloud, I would suggest improvements in policy checks to cater to various inventory types like VPCs, subnets, S3 buckets, or IAMs. There is a lack of data segregation according to criticality or inventory."
"We would like to see Windows-based sensors available in Qualys, as this would make the platform more versatile and support a broader range of environments."
"One of the things that could be improved is the alerts. Qualys is a fantastic tool, especially with the TruRisk feature, but one challenge that most leaders face involves alert fatigue."
"Qualys TotalCloud needs to improve its accuracy for non-Windows operating systems."
"With the growing integration of AI, I would like Qualys to enhance its service offerings to better accommodate AI-related risks."
"The biggest challenge now, which is a good problem to have, with BMC Helix is content."
"I think its TOA interfaces are still not that comfortable. The UI could be more user-friendly, easier to use."
"We've had some issues with connectors; the connectors have seemed to cause a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment."
"I want the role-based security feature to be improved."
"BMC Helix Cloud Security has room for improvement in terms of integrating its various features."
"Every organization out there doesn't rely on just one control body. They use FISMA control. They may use HIPAA, CIS, PCI, or SOX, then blend them. One of the things that is now in big demand for BMC Helix Cloud Security is content. That's the next journey in its lifespan, making it easier for the community to share and collaborate on content for security controls that can be measured and remediated."
"We've had some with issues connectors. The connectors have seemed to have caused a little bit of trouble, perhaps with the APIs trying to scan the environment. The only time I've had to reach out to tech support was for that. It seems it may not have been scanning correctly or I wasn't seeing data within a specific time. But we've set up a couple of connectors in the past couple of weeks and they actually scanned the AWS environment and we had data within about 10 minutes. It's working a lot faster and I think they're making improvements as they go."
"The UI could be more user-friendly."
"The solution should include compliance-based scanning."
"Tenable SC could be improved with additional connectivity to external company postures and the capability of managing and sustaining agents in the systems directly without additional platforms in the middle."
"Additional costs are associated with using the solution, as additional scanners are required for different endpoints connected to the Tenable Security Center. If Tenable Security Center could extract information from these scanners automatically rather than manually, it would enhance user-friendliness for customers."
"The GUI could be improved to have all concerns and priorities use the same GUI, allowing them to see all tickets, assign vulnerabilities, and assign variation failures to each member of their team."
"The solution needs to improve its support. I would like to see a bird's eye view of my network architecture. I would also like to see the continuous view feature in the tool."
"The user interface can be improved."
"Certain aspects require manual effort, such as exporting and analyzing data for our dashboards. The built-in components of the Tenable solution are somewhat clumsy that require external tools. So, this is an area of improvement."
"The integration is very good, although it still needs to improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It isn't cheap, but it's reasonable. It helps us to manage things with very few resources."
"Although Qualys TotalCloud is relatively expensive due to its unique automation features, its cost-effectiveness is rated an eight out of ten, with ten being the most costly."
"The pricing for TotalCloud is attractive and competitive in the market. Given the features, especially the dashboard, I have no concerns regarding pricing."
"While Qualys TotalCloud's pricing is currently acceptable, it is becoming increasingly expensive and may soon be considered overpriced."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers competitive pricing given its comprehensive suite of features, including integration, assessment, remediation, and detection capabilities, all within a single platform."
"Qualys TotalCloud is expensive."
"Qualys TotalCloud offers good pricing that is affordable and competitive with the market. Our partnership also provides us with additional benefits."
"Qualys TotalCloud is cost-efficient and was selected for its value compared to other products."
"The pricing is based on an annual subscription, upfront, and it's based on cloud assets. Whether your assets are in Azure and AWS combined, the tool tells you how many assets are being scanned and that's the number used for pricing."
"It is a subscription model with term licensing that is usually yearly. This includes, not only the product, but support and maintenance. It is based on cloud assets. Therefore, if you have 100 cloud assets, those cloud assets are measured based on evaluation or transactions. For example, if I'm evaluating that cloud asset for CIS compliance, PCI compliance, and AWS best practices, that asset gets evaluated three times, as those are three transactions. However, the license model is based on peak asset usage. So, over a year, if you deploy 100, 1000, 500, and then 2000 assets, you will be charged for the 2000 peak of assets managed by Helix Cloud Security."
"It is slightly more expensive than other solutions in the same sphere."
"This solution's price is quite high."
"The pricing is more than Nexpose."
"The price of Tenable SC is expensive, we pay approximately €70,000 for the license annually. We have to pay for each IP test. The cost of other solutions is far less, such as Nessus Professional, which is €3,000 annually."
"We're able to save because we don't have to employ more staff members to help wit ht he scheduling of the scans, running the reports or sending them out to the systems owners. That alone is a big ROI for us."
"Compared to other companies or other products it could maybe be a little bit less, but the price is okay. I would say it's not very expensive."
"We pay around 60,000 on a yearly basis."
"The price can start at €10,000 ($13,000 USD) for between 500 and 1,000 assets, and the price can climb into the millions as more assets are added."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Transportation Company
8%
Performing Arts
8%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise31
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Qualys TotalCloud?
To be totally honest, I do not have any best features because I have had a bad experience using this tool, especially...
What is your primary use case for Qualys TotalCloud?
My main use case for Qualys TotalCloud is vulnerability management and exposure management. I use this tool to evalua...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Tenable SC?
The price of Tenable Security Center is not so high; it's relatively a cheaper solution.
What needs improvement with Tenable SC?
We did conduct a long implementation which relates to what I think can be improved about Tenable Security Center. In ...
What is your primary use case for Tenable SC?
The typical use case for Tenable Security Center is that it is an on-premise solution, and it can use the agent and a...
 

Also Known As

Qualys TotalCloud with FlexScan
TrueSight Cloud Security, SecOps Policy Service
Tenable.sc, Tenable Unified Security, Tenable SecurityCenter
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
NHS, Vodafone, Kansas City Life, SKY Italia, Cybera
IBM, Sempra Energy, Microsoft, Apple, Adidas, Union Pacific
Find out what your peers are saying about BMC Helix Cloud Security vs. Tenable Security Center and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.